Fin-count vs pipe-count in a heatsink

[DatGameh]

Some time in the future, I'm gonna buy a CPU cooler/heatsink for a 60W load.
Although the load is relatively low, I still want to get the best heatsink possible.

There are two heatsinks I found, with one of them having three heatpipes, but barely any fins. This is a top flow CPU cooler.
The other one has two heatpipes and a lot of fins. This is a tower CPU cooler.

Which one would provide the best cooling potential?

 

[MaDDD]

It's almost like saying is an apple going to cool it better than a banana. The size, quality in design and manufacture and material are also important aspects. How many fins or heat-pipes bares no relevance if one is poorly designed/made and the other is well designed/made.

 

[madmatt30]

^ what he said.

Also bear this in mind - a down flow cooler is very likely to not have many fins because its design doesn't need them - the fan forces air into the heatsink & its forced out of the sides, a tower however needs to have the ability to allow the airflow straight through the heatsink from the front & out of the rear.

Point us to the 2 you're talking about & bear in mind that your case layout & cooling configuration can also dictate the better choice

 

[DatGameh]

It's almost like saying is an apple going to cool it better than a banana. The size, quality in design and manufacture and material are also important aspects. How many fins or heat-pipes bares no relevance if one is poorly designed/made and the other is well designed/made.

I'm not looking for specific specs for each cooler.
I know there are different types of heatpipes (grooved, powder, etc) and fin shapes, but I generally want to know if the addition/removal of a heatpipe provides greater change in performance, compared to fin surface area.

 

[geofelt]

Neither is an important consideration compared to others.

1. If you have the height available to mount a tower type cooler, it will be more effective than a downdraft cooler.

2. Number of fins must be considered in combination with fin design and spacing.

3. Number of heat pipes must be considered along with the size and length of the heat pipes.

4. Fan size and rpm are probably more important to cooling capability than 2. and 3.
There is a trade off here on cooling vs. noise.

5. The ability of a case to supply sufficient fresh air to let the cooler do it's job.

What is your case?

What are the two cooler candidates you found?

Compare them to the $35 scythe kotetsu:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/Scythe_Kotetsu

 

[DatGameh]

Neither is an important consideration compared to others.

1. If you have the height available to mount a tower type cooler, it will be more effective than a downdraft cooler.

2. Number of fins must be considered in combination with fin design and spacing.

3. Number of heat pipes must be considered along with the size and length of the heat pipes.

4. Fan size and rpm are probably more important to cooling capability than 2. and 3.
There is a trade off here on cooling vs. noise.

5. The ability of a case to supply sufficient fresh air to let the cooler do it's job.

What is your case?

What are the two cooler candidates you found?

Compare them to the $35 scythe kotetsu:
http://www.silentpcreview.com/Scythe_Kotetsu

I plan to use the coolers extremely temporarily. They are ancient, LGA 775 coolers.
These are the coolers:

https://ecs7.tokopedia.net/img/product-1/2015/9/28/170458/170458_cd3782f8-b1cc-47a3-ab1f-854a6f7ef7ef.jpg
https://ecs7.tokopedia.net/img/product-1/2016/9/5/1508154/1508154_88c60efb-926d-4b06-b946-47e33e7a0349.jpg

The first one is a cheap chinese heatsink that has never been used. 80mm fan.
The second one may be a server heatsink. I'll dip it in vinegar later to remove oxidation. 100mm fan.
These are only for experiments. Forgive me if the horribly kept heatsink disturbed you (lol)

So, yeah. I'm not going to use these heatsinks for CPUs.
It's a non-computer experiment I will be doing.

 

[madmatt30]

Straight off the bat & just glancing at the photos I'd say the tower , although noisier , will be the better cooler.

 

[DatGameh]

Straight off the bat & just glancing at the photos I'd say the tower , although noisier , will be the better cooler.

Ah, I see. Thanks for your input. I'll be considering more to this cooler.
But, I'm still curious to see geofelt and MaDDD's opinions, though.

 

[MaDDD]

I would guess at the tower one being a better cooler, it has more area for it to cool, along with the larger fan which should push more air through the cooler. As you may know or see from popular coolers and well performing coolers, they tend to be tower styled. As they have more space for larger cooling surfaces as well as larger fans. But, if the tower uses a aluminium contact area where it meets the CPU and the other uses copper, it may be different.